Tophatter Marketplace Pays Out Using the ACH Network

Marketplace uses ACH payments to offer an efficient delivery of funds directly into a bank account.

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The thrill of the hunt applies to online shopping.

Tophatter is an e-commerce marketplace that offers one-of-a-kind shopping experiences. Shoppers compete in 90-second auctions to win huge savings on a huge mix of products from jewelry to electronics to health and beauty products. Buyers can save big and have fun while doing it.

Similar to Instagram and Facebook, Tophatter is built to be a “scrollable” experience that provides buyers with endless opportunities to win unique products. Tophatter is a discovery marketplace, meaning most purchases are things people “didn’t know they needed.” Most users don’t visit the marketplace with a specific item in mind. More than 90% of purchases on Tophatter are not preceded by a search query. Shoppers see what’s available, how big the savings are and try to snag a deal. After registering with an email, users can start hunting for the next great win.

For the sellers, the Tophatter platform provides the opportunity to sell a high volume of goods in a short amount of time. With an efficient payout process, sellers can easily be paid for the goods they sold.

“We focused on the discovery aspect, where the shopper doesn’t know what they want and they want to be inspired to find something and have fun shopping,” says Andrew Blachman, Tophatter President. “We built a format that has worked really well and is growing. Last year, we sold about 100,000 products a day on Tophatter to shoppers in 14 countries.”

With that much money moving, Tophatter has to make sure its payment experience is top-notch. Sellers post their items to the marketplace after registering through the Tophatter website and completing a quick onboarding. Tophatter takes a commision of the total sale and sends the remaining profit to the seller through an ACH payment to a bank account or a PayPal digital wallet.

“We’ve been using Dwolla for years. And for years, Dwolla has been working smoothly.”

Andrew Blachman

President

A Tip of the Hat

Making shopping more fun is what compelled Charlie Spencer, an eBay veteran, to join the Tophatter team. Spencer is the Director of Trust and Safety at Tophatter. “Shopping as entertainment is an American past-time,” Spencer says. “That fun is lost in the efficient big box shopping experience. Tophatter put the joy back in shopping. ”

“Offering ACH payments is an important part of our ecosystem. With Dwolla handling ACH payouts, funds are sent directly to an existing bank account,” Spencer says. “Some enterprise sellers want their payments to fit into their existing accounting systems. Paying into an existing bank allows them to do that.”

With Dwolla handling ACH payouts, funds are sent to an existing bank account.

Spencer says that was only needing to have merchants approve a single user agreement is another value.

“Going through two seperate user agreements is a lot of friction for merchant registration,” Spencer says. “Their legal teams aren’t wanting to review multiple user agreements. The fact that we can offer a single user agreement with Dwolla is a major attraction to some partners.”

Ripping the Top Off

Tophatter has grown steadily since its launch, and it’s easy to see why. Items sell fast because of the huge number of shoppers (more than 27 million). The speed and the volume makes efficient payments necessary.

“Dwolla gives us flexibility for ACH payouts,” Spencer says. “The biggest group I see benefiting from it are some of our largest merchants, the true enterprise customers we have. That gives us access to a customer who wouldn’t register with us otherwise.”

Tophatter receives a portion of each sale made on the site. For the rest of 2019 and into 2020, marketing manager Hanna Matyiku says they are working to further expand Tophatter and its shopping experience.

“We tell our merchants to diversify, to sell on Amazon and eBay as well,” says Matyiku. “We offer the ability to move volume really quickly. If a product can sell well in the auction format, the product can sell thousands of times a day on our site.”

That speed of sales wouldn’t be possible without reliable payments partners that can support significant platform growth.

“We have been very surprised how easy payments have been with Dwolla,” Spencer says. “Dwolla in general has made payouts very simple and easy for us.”

Tophatter makes it easy for sellers to sell quickly and fun for shoppers who like finding value. Dwolla makes it easy for everyone to get paid.

Dwolla, Inc. is an agent of Veridian Credit Union and all funds associated with your account in our network are held in one or more pooled accounts at Veridian Credit Union. These funds may not be eligible for share insurance by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund. Dwolla, Inc. is the operator of a software platform that communicates user instructions for funds transfers to Veridian Credit Union.